Demise of the Vampire

By Ezra Frager
Vampires have become a part of today’s pop culture. They are all the rage right now. It is all that teenage girls can talk about. However the vampire of today is not the same as the vampires portrayed in stories and movies of the past few centuries. The depiction of the classic vampire well known by all has been defiled and replaced with a new less frightening version.
Last year I spent a year studying abroad in Israel. Being in a foreign country with limited computer access and television I was essentially disconnected from the happenings of the world. I would get snippets of news here and there, and heard about a new vampire movie that was out called Twilight, and doing very well in the box office. With no previous knowledge about the book and as a big vampire movie fanatic I went to go see the movie thinking it would be scary, entertaining, gory, and action packed such as the Blade or Underworld films. Of course what I saw was nothing of the sort. I was appalled. Vampires have gone from being villainous, murderess monsters to attractive young heroic men involved in a tacky love story.
The Twilight books written by Stephenie Meyer and movie have exploded in popularity. The novel was the biggest selling book of 2008 and to date, has sold 17 million copies around the globe, spent over 91 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, and been translated into 37 different languages ( “The Top 100 titles of 2008” USA Today, Gerri Miller “Inside Twilight”, Kenneth Turan “Movie Review”). The movie grossed more than $382,000,000 worldwide and an additional $157,000,000 from DVD sales (Box Office Mojo, The Numbers). This pandemic for the most part has infected girls spanning from young to even middle aged. The popularity of twilight has led to the spawning of new shows such as The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, and a variety of new vampire books, all of which share a similar plotline to Twilight involving a romantic relationship between a vampire and a woman. I even came across a Special Edition “People” magazine devoted to giving only exclusive coverage from the set of the next Twilight movie New Moon. In it were at least five advertisements for a different series of vampire novels.
The classical image of the vampire that has been around for millennium has been butchered by Twilight and its offspring. Every culture from the times of even Mesopotamia 9000 years ago has legends involving vampires and vampire like creatures. Most of these legends and folklore give the impression of vampires being blood thirsty monsters who feed on humans in order to survive. Today’s new version of the vampire has them restraining themselves from feeding on the blood of humans and feeding solely on animals. Any vampire that doesn’t do this is an enemy of the ones that do. According to most vampire folklore vampires cannot be out in the day light or they shall be incinerated. In Twilight when a vampire goes out into the sun all that happens is his skin sparkles as if covered in glitter. In The Vampire Diaries as long as a vampire is wearing a special wring he can also be out in the sun. Two well known characteristics of the classic vampire according to most legends and portrayed in numerous vampire movies, shows, and books over the past two centuries is the ability of garlic and crosses to repel them. This was also ignored in the creation of this new generation. Vampires are supposed to instill fear in movie and television viewers. I have actually seen interviews with young women on the news who instead of being frightened by today’s vampire movies, books, etc. actually fantasize about being in a romantic relationship with a vampire and becoming one so they can live together for eternity. This is not the effect a vampire should have on people. Why would any sane person want a creature to sink their enormous fangs into their neck, suck all of their blood, and doom them to walk the face of the earth forever as they watch friends and family all die away? Why would anybody want to no longer be able to take pleasure in the taste of fine food and constantly crave blood; the only way of being put to rest through a gruesome murder whether it be the impaling of their heart with a wooden stake, decapitation, burned alive, etc.?
We are currently in the dawn of a new age of vampire. No longer are vampires frightening monsters, who are the subject of horror films. Today vampires can be found in dull romantic movies, books, and television shows that glorifies being a vampire and ignores ancient folklore. This is not the way vampires are supposed to be. The real “undead” are finally dead.